Hot Shot Loads And Where To Find Them

New to trucking and wondering what hot shot loads are? This blog will definitively help you understand what they are and where to find them.

Hot Shot Loads

Even the name sounds exciting. Stemming from the wild days of the Texas oil boom, hotshot loads are still dynamic and lucrative. Once upon a time, successful prospecting during the oil boom required drivers who were willing to quickly haul personnel, equipment, and product at the drop of a ten-gallon hat. While truck drivers might no longer be kicking up a cloud of dust as they speed across the oilfields to deliver a new drill bit, the excitement of rush jobs — and the lucrative compensation attached — remains.

Hotshot Trucking Today

The term hotshot loads now refers mostly to rush and LTL (less-than-truckload) jobs. In fact, brokers and shippers are increasingly relying on hotshot and LTL trucking to make sure that highly necessary or valuable inventory gets to its destination on time. While this can be an operational headache for the businesses, it can be a financial boom for expedited hotshot and LTL drivers.

While handling expedited cargo and quick deadlines comes with obvious challenges, those willing to be flexible can reap significant monetary benefits. Hotshot drivers can expect a significantly higher per-mile compensation rate than they would receive from conventional loads, making hotshot and LTL loads a sought-after job by discerning drivers.

Finding Expedited and LTL Trucking Jobs

That isn’t to say that hotshot and LTL loads are hard to find. Today’s business world moves at an increasingly hectic pace, and the demand for rush deliveries is growing just as fast. As such, many trucking companies and owner-operators make hotshot loads a regular part of their business by simply perusing load boards for available drivers. Popular load boards, such as 123Loadboard, have hotshot and LTL search filters including a mobile app with easy tools to find hot shot loads. Though the oil boom may be (mostly) over, if you know where to look, the benefits of hotshot loads are still here.

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123Loadboard provides a freight matching web and mobile app marketplace for carriers, owner­-operators, brokers and shippers to engage with trucking tools to help professional truck drivers find loads and increase their loaded miles. 123Loadboard is a trusted source for freight matching, credit, compliance issues, mileage and routing and is one of the few load board services where posting loads is still free.